This went smoothly enough.




An hour or so including tidy up and unboxing, with just a modicum of sailor-talk and only one minor screwup that was easily fixed.

I dislodged one of the light wiring harnesses when I was whacking in the clips. Popped out the wheel liner and reattached. I hadn't correctly engaged it initially.


Try as I might with the first one, the stock wheel arches could not be preserved. Plastic tabs break and round clips on the rear break. After that, the others were just ripped off.


Pink white board marker. Don't etch the paint beyond here. Stop a bit shy of it.



+5 HP +10 Nm Torque


Hides a little scuff mark on the right front fender nicely.

 

Looks great! Awesome color.

 

Looks good! After I installed mine, I was happy it covered a rock chip on the front left fender that I received driving it home from the dealership when new, but then another one appeared a month later. Oh well!

Installing the rear fender I managed to miss removing a broken clip so it wouldn't seat properly (on the inside the door portion), but I managed to work in a door panel tool and rip it out - really had me worried for a bit!

 

How did you do aligning the front of the fender to the bumper trim? That was the hardest part for me. Got one side really good and then the other overlaps a little.

 

@inater

I'm not really sure what I did. I think the arch liners can hang you up easily enough. Perhaps that was the culprit.
Took a little finagling to get everything just right with the door seals on the short pieces and arch liners on front and rear before giving the clips the seating-whack home.

One thing I'd do differently if I was doing it again would be to pop the alcohol wipes and paint conditioner in the fridge before use. Very volatile stuff and having it cooler would give a little more working time. That and making sure I'd correctly engaged the light fittings. Fixing that added about 5 minutes of stress.

 

i have installed the fenders 3 times. if you don’t get the fitment almost perfect some of the edge pieces start lifting.

not a huge deal to take them off and install again but you will need new clips

 

I clearly lack your finesse. Removing the regular arches, I found it impossible to preserve their plastic tabs . The clips go flying. No biggie, but the tabs breaking means they'll never seat properly again. I damaged he originals a little when I removed the rear bumper for the tow loop install. I little glue fixed it like new but it was a less than ideal result. (No need to remove the arches much if at all. I was being dumb)

My chances of removing these and being able to reuse them like new or at all would be slim to none.

 

i reinstalled just the front pieces as both started to lift.

i followed powerful uk instructions which were great but realized locking up where they would go wasn’t too accurate.

on my my third set on a new defender i ended up taking off all the clips, fitting it first and then using the dry erase. that help align much better

 

My trick on the clips was to move the fabric wheel arch liner so that I could get to the back of the clips, then you can squeeze them with a pair of pliers and they slip right out. Didn't break a one.

 

One of my arches is lifting a little in one location which I have been studiously ignoring (I'm probably the only person who sees it). @Ehloo, 'm interested in the technique for removal, cleanup of old 2-sided tape, procurement of new tape and activator. All pointers gratefully received.